Norway at war The boys in the forest had been training and waiting impatiently to mobilise when the Germans capitulated. But there was no fighting in May 1945. On the 11th of May the Norwegian resistance forces took control of Akershus Fortress. After a peaceful handover the German flag was lowered and the Norwegian flag raised. This has given “the boys in the forest”, as the resistance forces were affectionately called, a unique position in Norwegian history.Photo: Norway’s Resistance Museum Egil Ringsø has served in the armed forces in Afghanistan. He has also been in the Lebanon, Bosnia, Tchad and Kosovo. In the summer of 2013 he stopped sleeping at night. “Earlier I was always looking for excitement and comradeship. Now my youngest girl doesn’t want me to go away again She’s fed up with talking to her dad on Skype.” Almost 8000 Norwegians have taken part in military operations in Afghanistan. Many have had problems with the transition to everyday life back home in Norway. Egil was one who was diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. For some of the others it has ended with them taking their own lives. Photo: Jørgen Braaastad, 2014.